A Man Out of Time
by DreadingTheDayWhenYou'reGone
Summary: Steve and the Doctor share an adventure, however small and sad it may become, into the room of the Stork Club.


**In which Katie ventures into the world of crossovers and writes yet another fanfic that causes Bunny to cry. A fic that took her a little under three months to write because she couldn't get it done, and the idea all came with the help of highaltitudedreams over on tumblr . com. A fic that she hopes you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who and Captain America both belong to their respected companies and I had nothing to do with creating their wonderful worlds.**

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A man out of time. Another out of his world. Both trying to find someone they've loved—to remember how they smelled and felt against their touch.

Yet both fall alone.

Together, though, they might make a difference.

_The phone, Steve. Call her, _one chants, eyes staring at her number and at the telephone. He doesn't make a move to touch it, leaving it on its perch. He wonders if she knows he's alive, knows that he got defrosted. She probably does know that they pulled him out of the ice, the problem being that she might not know he's_ alive_, just cold and long gone, just out of her reach.

The Doctor's eyes stare at the woman, knowing how she dies, but not knowing how to save her. He can't, and he knows it. Though this is just a picture, a picture of his wife, he knows she's alive out there, alive and knowing more about him than he does about her. And when he knows nothing about her, she'll know everything about him. And she will die for him—already has died for him—so the Doctor stares at her and silently mourns. He begins hitting buttons, tweaking around and aiming for someone like him.

Out of time. Out of their place. Like him. But with a chance to change something.

The sound of an engine fills Steve's apartment, drowning out the noise of traffic and talking. He stands, knowing somehow that the origin of the sound will land near him, if not in this room. The hero looks around the room, searching for something to use against the machine. Anything.

He comes up with nothing and the sound suddenly stops. Steve looks around the room, swiftly, until his blue eyes landed on something not belonging. A police box, one he hadn't seen in weeks—_no, it's been years since I last saw one of those_, he has to remind himself because he was frozen for seventy years at the least. The change of scenery should be a reminder alone.

Even then they weren't a normality in New York City, because they belonged in England, where Peggy's from. So Steve stands at ready, hands gripping the lamp on its stand and preparing to throw it.

The door creaks open, slowly and as if there's something to be ready on the other side, on the side Steve is standing on. Out appears a man, wearing a brown tweed jacket and a bowtie, which he fixes as soon as he steps fully out of the box. The man's hair is long, strands falling and covering his ears partly, and brown.

Steve is blunt in asking who he is, why he's there, and how in the world that _thing _appeared in his apartment, all the while holding the lamp, though letting it fall slowly after each question because they were answered and he showed no weapons.

"Doctor. Because you're out of place. And because of the TARDIS." He waves as he speaks to the blue box behind him, suggesting that the thing is bigger and is capable of taking him away. Though Steve knows it is quite impossible, not seeming at all aerodynamically capable of flight, being a police box and all.

"Why would I be out of place?" is Steve's quick remark, the lamp back on the stand and the folders he was looking at earlier closed, Peggy's information staring back at him whenever he closes his eyes.

_Call her, you idiot_, his mind chants again. He passes it off, because with this strange man standing in front of him, calling someone who hasn't seen him in over seventy years would be preposterous.

"I know about you, Steve Rogers. Captain America. You've been gone a long time, and missed out on quite a few things."

"How do you know that?" He inches toward the lamp again, his only weapon against this strange tweed clad jacket man. This man and his strange box.

"Because I know a lot of things, and one of them is about the superheroes that dwell in this world. Like the man in the big tower over there." The Doctor gestures vaguely toward the Stark Tower, which the owner's name stands bright against the sky. Steve doesn't tell him that of course he knows Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he lets him continue. "But that isn't something to linger on right now. I hear you're lonely—missing someone."

This time he nods toward the folder, closed and suspicious on the table alone. The other papers, the one's holding his deceased friends' information and anyone else related to them, like Howard Stark's son Tony—the one living in the tower—wait where Steve just was, examining them.

"How would you know that?"

"Because you're like me." That's when the hero realizes that the man has an accent, one sounding a bit like Peggy's did when she spoke. From England.

"Are … are you from Britain?"

"Technically, yes. Why?"

He doesn't ask how one is technically from Britain, just jumps to his thoughts of the phone. "My … my friend is there. Can you take me there? In that box?"

"She's called the TARDIS. Time and relative dimension in space. And where is not the question, but when."

"When?"

"All of time in space in my Sexy." The Doctor smiles at that, smiles and goes to pat the box.

Steve raises an eyebrow. "Sexy?"

"That's her name. Sexy. Never mind. But yes, I can take you there. When would you like to go?"

"Merryweather Winchester, UK. That's where she lives now."

"Yes. I can take you there if you'd like. But _when _do you want to go? Before you froze or …" He leaves the question open—open because there's all of time and space and he needs to go sometime to see her, whether it's today, or tomorrow, or yesterday, or a week after he crashed. He just needs to see her.

Because _I … I had a date._

Funny thing is, so does the Doctor. It's time for his picnic on Asgard with his wife. It's not long until they go see the Singing Towers of Darillium, until she visits the Library and meets the tenth version of him, the one who knows nothing about her. Because that's how their time streams are working, backwards and confusing. The little blue book of hers that resembles the TARDIS stands in his mind, sad and unread, holding secrets he might never know.

Steve doesn't know the answer to his question, doesn't know because that box is still small and probably holds an illusion somewhere in or around it that let the man appear in his apartment. For all Steve knows, it could have been placed there by S.H.I.E.L.D. for some type of test.

But Steve still doesn't know and states the time of his date, "The week after I crashed. A Saturday. A place called the Stork Club, New York. 8 o'clock, sharp. Can you take me there?"

The Doctor smiles, stares at the man, and replies, "Specific, aren't we?"

"I'd never forget the date," he simply says, eyes staring straight at the box and not at the man. No, because he still doesn't know how to dance. Doesn't know whether he should also go to Winchester to see old Peggy, to tell her in person that he's alive. Because she's the only one of his friends still alive, and she probably hasn't changed a bit.

"Off we go, then?" The Doctor raises an eyebrow, however thin, and motions toward the TARDIS.

"I … I don't think we can fit in there, exactly." His words, after the revealing of the date and the memory of him falling toward the earth, are small, almost like they're not his.

"We will. Trust me, I'm the Doctor." So the Doctor opens the police box and disappears inside, the door open for the hero to step through. Which, after a moment's hesitation, he does, only to be in awe of the inside.

"Impossible," he mumbles, staring up and around and through the branching of halls. "It's … it's bigger on the inside. How?"

"The mystery of it is what keeps them wondering," the Doctor replies, a smirk across his face. "Close the door, will you?"

"Yeah, sure. Yeah." The hero closes the door behind him before climbing the stairs up to where the Doctor stands, hands gliding across the panel. Steve is reminded briefly of when he went under, of his firm grip on the controls as the ground came closer and closer until he couldn't remember anything else. But this control panel is much more complex than the one he used.

There's a circular thing here and a knob there, while a pinwheellooking thing spins to his left. All of it is confusing, and he wonders how in the world the Doctor remembers what does what. But he doesn't ask, because this man is still strange, what with his box that's bigger on the inside and the promise to take him to the Stork Club to see Peggy.

The box lurches forward, a noise that sounds vaguely like an engine whirring comes to their ears, and the Doctor stops pushing buttons to look at the hero. "What's your friend's name, if I might ask?"

"Peggy. Peggy Carter."

"Lovely name."

"Do you have anyone else here?" Steve asks, not sure why he does. Maybe it's because there's a twinge of sadness in the man's eyes, something old and worrying and vaguely looking like hurt.

"I have companions. They're all lovely, really. You'd like some of them."

Before another question can be asked, the TARDIS comes to an abrupt stop, and the Doctor stands up a bit straighter, fixing his bowtie one last time before making his way to the blue door. "We've arrived."

Steve briefly thinks, _That was quick to travel seventy years into the past. _But he shrugs it off, joining the Doctor at the door, who opens it to reveal the Stork Club, exactly how Steve remembers it, just like he was here yesterday. The TARDIS landed in the bar area where he and his friends hung out during the war.

Nobody seems to notice the bright blue box as the Doctor closes the door behind him, watching as Steve takes his first step in the dim room. It smells partially of alcohol and too much perfume, just like his memory serves him. The Doctor doesn't move from his place against the box, gazing instead at the man who was thought to be dead as he stands next to him, eyes on the bar.

A woman, lips painted red, eyes full of sadness, sits alone at the bar, a glass of alcohol in her grasp. She stares at the door as if waiting for someone she knows will never show, not because he's caught up in someone else, but because he is stuck in ice. She looks like she's about to cry, probably caught up in memories of the man.

"That's Peggy Carter," Steve tells the Doctor, whom he's still standing next to. The Doctor nods, not finding the need to say anything, and points his chin up, motioning for him to go toward her. And he does make his way over to the bar, sits next to Peggy, and waits. He doesn't order anything to drink for a long time, just stares at the wood on the bar counter and then he turns. Turns toward Peggy and says, "Would you like to dance?"

Her red lips move to say, "I'm waiting on someone" but they catch in her throat when she looks over at the man offering to dance. And his name is but a ghost on her lips as she stares at him in awe, not believing what her eyes are seeing because this man—the man she loved—died in the ice cold ocean, lost for seventy years.

"So is that a yes to dancing?"

Words don't fall from her lips immediately, but when she composes herself enough to say, "Yes, I'll dance with you."

"I still don't know how to dance, though."

And her voice continues to choke in her throat, remembering the tears rolling down her cheeks at the tower, leaning in to hear the static and not his voice. "It's okay. I'll show you." Her lips are bright red in the dim bar room, and Steve keeps an eye on her because that's all he sees. Just Peggy Carter and not the brilliant blue box that brought him here. "Put your hand on my waist and take my other hand in yours."

He follows her instructions, palms no doubt sweaty because he still has no idea how to dance and he's sure that Peggy thinks he's not really there, thinks that he's still dead, thinks that it's all fake and in her head. Steve takes a breath, eyes trained on Peggy's, who still looks like she's about to cry.

"You look nice," he whispers in a lapse of her instructions. She truly does in her red dress that matches her lips, and her shoes click as they move across the bar floor. He regrets not changing from his white button down shirt that he wore when the Doctor arrived, but the thought passes away as she smiles at him, white teeth showing for just a second under her lips.

"Thank you. You look rather handsome as well."

His face blushes, but the coloring is lost in the lighting, and Peggy smiles that smile and he can't help but look at her. Her her her her her. There is nothing in the world but her, and the music is distant as they glide about the room, his palms sweaty and his face glad.

"When I heard the static, I thought you were … I thought you were gone," she whispers, not daring to speak louder than she already has.

Steve opens his mouth to tell her that he did, in fact, leave her, but he thinks better of it. He saves the reply for that statement for later, deciding that happiness during the date is better than sadness throughout the rest of it.

The man nods, eyes glancing over at the box, where the TARDIS still stands, unnoticed by roaming, drunk eyes, and Peggy's follow. The Doctor is no longer next to it, probably inside the box or somewhere else in the Stork Club.

"What's that doing here?" She almost steps toward it, but thinks better of it.

Steve shakes his head, and Peggy averts her eyes from the object, deciding that Steve is better than any unfed curiosity. They continue their dance, his feet stepping on hers at times, but her face doesn't falter from that look of sadness mingling with joy. Tears brew unshed, and they give her eyes almost an unearthly look.

The songs continue on, blurring together in sweaty palms and smashing of feet. Slow songs and fast songs and any other song one can think of they dance, not moving from their position.

But, all too soon for either's liking, the people have all left, leaving but the two of them and empty streets. Now, standing at the entrance of the club, Steve finds himself not wanting to tell her the truth that this is probably the last time she will ever see him. But he must, and he knows it.

Standing silently, Steve placing her jacket around her arms, they watch the moon high above.

"Peggy," he begins, voice quiet. A soft noise questions what he wants, her eyes not moving from the sky and the streets. "Peggy, I'm sorry. But—"

"I know, Steve." It's one of the few times she's used his name tonight, and it sends his heart breaking. "I know."

Before the super-solider can say more, his lips are otherwise occupied. With hands pulling at his cheeks, begging him to scrunch down to her height, and heated, lovely lips pressing into his, he closes his eyes, the feeling unfamiliar to him but wonderful all the same. His hands grab her hips, digging down but gentle.

It's over all too soon, and she's gone from his vision before he can say goodbye. But the kiss still tingles his lips, their last goodbye, not leaving room for words. And then he feels the small trickle of something wet on his face. Steve looks up, searching for rain clouds, before realizing he's been crying, or she was crying. He steps forward, hand wanting to stretch and reach after her but finding nothing but air.

Sadly, he turns back to the club, opening the door and walking over to the TARDIS. The door opens almost automatically, and Steve sees the Doctor quickly. He's leaning against the console, eyes trained on a screen. Steve walks up to see what it is, and finds himself staring at a woman with frizzy hair and weird clothes.

Before he can stop himself, he asks, "Who is that?"

The Doctor fumbles to turn the screen off. Succeeding, he turns back to Steve. A bit flustered but otherwise composed, he answers the question. "River. River Song."

"Do you two—Do you—Where is she?"

Not really knowing the answer, he states, "In prison, I think." Steve doesn't question, instead nods his head and gestures to the console.

"Should we go home, then?"

The Doctor nods too, flipping buttons and things until the machine lurches forward, groaning. "Did you have a nice night?"

Steve feels his lips for the kiss, the tingling still there, and replies, "Yes, it was lovely."

"That's great. Would you like to go visit her in the present?"

He shakes his head, adding, "No. Not today, at least." Because if he sees old, withered Peggy, he thinks he'll cry. And she will cry, and seeing her cry two times in one night for him would kill the man. So, when the box stops its flight, Steve wishes the Doctor a good night, and that he sees that River.

The Doctor never really comes back for that other night with Peggy, leaving Steve to his own devices. But he watches as Steve helps save a world from his box in the sky, watches as he helps a child in the back of a car, watches as he boards an airplane and wanders to the front door of a home in Merryweather. He watches and smiles.


End file.
